# OMERO upgrade checks

On each startup the OMERO server checks for available upgrades via the UpgradeCheck class. An HTTP GET call is made to the URL configured in omero-common.properties as `omero.upgrades.url`, currently `http://upgrade.openmicroscopy.org.uk` by default (note that viewing that link in your browser will redirect you to this page).

Note

If you have been redirected here by clicking on a link to `http://upgrade.openmicroscopy.org.uk` in an error message or log while trying to run one of the Bio-Formats command line tools, please see the Bio-Formats command line tools documentation for assistance.

## Actions

Currently the only action taken when an upgrade is necessary is a log statement at WARN level.

    2017-09-01 12:21:32,070 WARN  [                 ome.system.UpgradeCheck] (      main) UPGRADE AVAILABLE:Please upgrade to 5.6.16 See https://downloads.openmicroscopy.org/latest/omero for the latest version

Future versions may also send emails and/or IMs to administrators. In the case of critical upgrades, the server may refuse to start.

## Privacy

Currently, the only information which is being transmitted to the server is:

- Java virtual machine version

- operating system details (architecture, version and name)

- current server version

- poll frequency (for determining statistics)

- your IP address (standard HTTP header information)

Note

Currently the “poll” property is unused.

If this is a problem for your site, please see Disabling below.

## Disabling

If you would prefer to have no checks made, the check can be disabled by setting the omero.upgrades.url property to an empty string:

    omero.upgrades.url=

## Developers

To use the UpgradeCheck class from your own code, it is necessary to have `omero-common-x.y.z.jar` on your classpath. Then,

    String version = "yourAppVersion" // e.g. 5.5.0;
    ResourceBundle bundle = ResourceBundle.getBundle("omero-common");
    String url = bundle.getString("omero.upgrades.url");
    ome.system.UpgradeCheck check = new UpgradeCheck(
      url, version, "insight"); // Or "importer", etc.
    check.run();
    check.isUpgradeNeeded();
    // optionally
    check.isExceptionThrown();

will connect to the server and check your current version against the latest release.

See also

OMERO.server installation

  Instructions for installing OMERO.server on UNIX and UNIX-like platforms

OMERO.server upgrade

  Instructions for upgrading OMERO.server

Server security and firewalls

  Description of OMERO security practices